Musician Ezra Furman talks about his faith and the fight against homophobia

Mary Reines mreines@wickedlocal.com @MaryReines

Wednesday

Oct 24, 2018 at 1:15 PM

At first glance, the song title “Maraschino-Red Dress $8.99 At Goodwill,” might read like an ode to the bargain glamor of thrift store browsing, but according to rocker Ezra Furman, the track is among the most painful he has penned.

“That song is brutal for me; it’s just brutal,” said the 32-year-old queer musician, who graduated from Tufts University in 2008. “It’s maybe the saddest thing I’ve written.”

The track is off his fourth solo album, “Transangelic Exodus,” which was released in February. It’s packed with confessions — “I am hideous and no one can ever know” — and allusions to Furman’s lifestyle as a practicing Jew — “When the sun gets low down, bloody and red, I tie a little knot at the center of my head” — referring to the ritual of tefillin, an unusual routine for an American indie rock musician to sing about.

“In the world of punky indie-type music, there’s just, like, not a lot of open religiosity,” said Furman.

Furman grew up in Evanston, Illinois, where he attended a Conservative Solomon Schechter day school, according to an article in the British newspaper The Telegraph. He gave up playing Friday night shows some years ago in order to observe Shabbat, which starts at sundown. He said he reads the Hebrew Bible “constantly,” and noted that “Transangelic Exodus,” is “a bit of biblical transmutation.”

“There’s a very ancient tradition of people writing their own thing in response to the Bible and … I wonder what my thing would be,” said Furman. “I mean, one thing I wrote is that album.”

Another song off the album, “God Lifts Up The Lowly,” was inspired by a Hebrew prayer that leads up to the Amidah. At the end of the song, Furman recites some lines from the prayer, which describe God as an entity that “cares for the poor” and “brings down the arrogant,” according to Furman.

“For me, the vision of God is someone who helps people who are in trouble or cares about suffering people,” said Furman. “That’s the theology that pushes you to do better in the world.”

He spoke about the role that religion plays in his life, and in society.

“I think most of us are asked not to be religious, but … to be capitalists, I guess, and to be selfish and entertain ourselves constantly, stuff like that,” Furman said. “To be religious, for me is a way of pushing against those corrosive roles that we’re asked to play … Judaism, to me, seems like … protest spirituality at its best.”

The gripping “Maraschino-Red Dress $8.99 At Goodwill,” juxtaposes Furman’s Jewish faith with his queerness, capturing a moment when he feels like he has nowhere left to turn to escape the persecution he must endure as a man in a red dress.

“I don’t think I’ll be showing up to synagogue at quarter past seven,” he confesses.

“Like, ‘This isn’t working for me anymore,’… and I’m just going to suffer and I’ll never fit in anywhere,” Furman said of the song’s message. “That’s like, reaching the end of my rope with religion.”

But, Furman said, he’s “glad for it to be brutal like that.”

“With being queer these days, like, there’s so much positivity and parades … and that stuff is all really vital for survival, I think. But sometimes … it could erase the parts of being queer that are just misery,” Furman said. “Those deserve to be honestly talked and sung about, screamed about…”

The persecution of LGBTQ people is also highlighted in Furman’s recent 33 1/3 book - short books about albums published by Bloomsbury - about Lou Reed’s 1972 album “Transformer.” In it, Furman examines the American queer experience from many angles.

At the forefront, there’s Reed’s inner turmoil as he grapples with his bisexuality years after his suburban Jewish parents put him through shock therapy with hopes of “curing” his homosexuality, as detailed through analyses of his songs. Then, there are stories of the historical violence against queer people, including a 1969 raid on the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village that sparked riots, as well as homophobic sentiments pumped into pop culture by misogynist rock critics.

But most poignant pieces of the story are Furman’s tellings of his own journey navigating his queer identity as a rock musician, drawing parallels to and inspiration from Reed’s struggles.

“His career compels me most of all because of how it acts out his and my own bitter struggle between whether to be someone who the world can accept and love -- whoever that might be -- or whether to be myself -- whoever that might be,” Furman wrote in the book. “I propose that for folks like me and Lou, the real meaning of queerness is defined by continual transformation, being permanently on the run from the straight authorities (real, imagined or both), that would try to force us to be something untrue.”

Never holding back, Furman uses his writings and music to illustrate the experiences of a queer person in America, and continues to advocate for equal rights for the LGBTQ community.

Looking at the upcoming Nov. 6 election, he urged Massachusetts readers to vote “yes” on Question 3, which asks voters to keep in place a 2016 state law prohibiting discrimination against transgender people in public places.

“It will prevent a lot of harm to transgender people in Massachusetts,” said Furman. “Trans people get kicked out of public places for being trans and that should be illegal.”

Furman’s waning patience in the fight against homophobia is the driving force behind “Maraschino-Red Dress $8.99 At Goodwill,” with each instrument steadily gripping the listener tighter and tighter, and Furman’s hoarse voice shouting the words until he explodes, “Sometimes you go through hell and you never get to heaven!”

Yet, ultimately, Furman returns to his faith as the song nears its end.

“I thank God, who gives strength to the weary,” he says with a growl.

“A lot of the stuff [I do] is meant to be against despair and ... give you some energy before you go back to the fight for human dignity,” Furman said. “I think some people find it helpful in that way.”

Furman will be performing with his band, Ezra Furman and the Visions, at The Sinclair in Cambridge on Monday, Oct. 29. Tickets, $15, are available at http://www.sinclaircambridge.com or $17 at the door. Doors open at 7 p.m. for this 8 p.m. show. OMNI will be the opener. This show is for ages 18-plus.